


The End (1939)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [237]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Angelic Grace, Bets & Wagers, Death from Old Age, Episode: s04e01 Lazarus Rising, F/M, Groping, Heaven, Impala, M/M, Pearly Gates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 16:14:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12039567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: Sherlock finds his inner angel, and he and John depart this world of toil with all the decorum and dignity that.... bwahahahaha, yeah right! St. Peter pulls a lever, Castiel pulls a move, and there are no more bets allowed - but it's not quite over.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lyster99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyster99/gifts).



_[Begin narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes]_

I suppose that, for a man over eighty years old (a great age for those times), I should have been more prepared. But when I woke in the small hours of that terrible morning and found the man that I loved more than life itself lying cold beside me, I broke. I knew that John was two and half years older than me, and logically I supposed that I had expected him to go first, but now what? How was I supposed to carry on without him? I could not, I just could not!

I pulled on a dressing-gown and went outside, uncaring of the cold September air. War with Herr Hitler's Germany had finally broken out, and next week would be my eighty-fifth birthday – but what did I have to live for now the man that I loved was gone? I stared sightlessly eastwards; the promise of dawn loomed over the downs, and I silently dreaded the day ahead.

We had been so happy these last few weeks, especially when my namesake, John's great-grandson, had come over with his father and grandfather (unfortunately unannounced, but we were fairly decent quite quickly, I thought). The boy was quiet and studious, and it had been good to see four generations of Watsons in the same room – John, Benjamin, Benedict and Sherlock. Benedict had been worried that a fellow worker down at the garage had been sacked after having been thrown out of his house when his wife had decided to leave him for someone else, and I had promised to arrange for a new house for the victim, a Mr. Lawrence Lamb, which I had duly done. It was good to spread a little happiness around; what else was money for but for making those you love smile?

I fell to the floor and wept. I would have given every penny I had for one final smile from John.

+~+~+

I did not know why, but I made my way to the barn that a local farmer had erected a few hundred yards along our ridge. We could not see it from the cottage, as a condition of its building had been that there had to be a screen of trees hiding it. It was empty and unused at this time of the year, and I needed some solitude before I faced dealing with what had happened. I smiled as I remembered my first time with John here; he had reminded me yet again of the strange painting of the angel Castiel being shot at in the barn, that we had seen in Mr. Virbius Henriksen's studio in our penultimate case together. There had been many barns since then.....

It all happened so quickly. The ground started shaking, and even though it had been a perfectly calm night outside when I had entered the building, there was a sudden strong wind causing it to shake. Strange lights were flashing through the cracks of the place, and I stood in the centre of it all, dumbfounded. Then the door swung open, and in walked.... 

“Jimmy?” 

It was not so much that he was here – I had come to expect the unexpected where my twin was concerned – but that he was... well, still Jimmy. When we had seen him back in East Suffolk back in 1903, I had wondered at how he had been almost unaltered from our first, terrible meeting in that Nottinghamshire wood, over a decade earlier. Some people change more than others, of course, but he had not seemed to have aged at all. And now, when I had thought him to be many thousands of miles away in the United States, he was not only here but also... still the same as all those years ago. 

He smiled re-assuringly at me.

“Hullo, Castiel.”

The voice was not his, either, but my own deeper tone. I should have been alarmed, but somehow I remained calm, wondering idly why he was using my middle name, which almost no-one ever did. Besides, there was surely no danger to me, and with John gone, what did I care anyway? He took two steps towards me, his eyes glowing strangely in the dark.

“I am afraid that I told you something of an untruth when I came into your life”, he said gravely. “The character of Jimmy Collins was provided by our Father so that I could watch over you, given your tendency to endanger yourself on a regular basis. I am sorry that your discovery of the character's existence led to the first break with the man that you love, but we had to find a way that the demons could not take advantage of to break out of their evil domain. I have been watching over you ever since.”

I could make neither head nor tail of what he was saying. He was close now, but I could not have moved to save my life. He smiled at me, then seemed to concentrate momentarily. The next moment, two huge brown-black shadows sprung from his back and seemed to fill the room. And in that instant, I knew – or thought I knew – who he was.

“You are Castiel!” I exclaimed. “The Angel of Thursday!”

He smiled and shook his head, took a final step forward and placed his hand lightly on my shoulder.

“Not quite”, he said. “I am Sachiel, the other Angel of Thursday. _You_ , brother, are Castiel!”

For a terrible moment, I felt that my body was going to explode with all the raw power – no, the _grace_ – that was pouring into it. The whole room was filled with the sort of intense blue light that, had I viewed it with human eyes, would surely have blinded me. As my body came back to itself – a body restored by my grace to when my vessel had been so much younger - I understood.

“Brother”, I said, trying to pull myself together. “Thank you.” I hesitated before adding, “um, the Righteous Man?”

My brother-angel smiled. 

“Your little 'mishap' in rescuing Dean Winchester from Hell has finally been remedied, even if you both had to live your full lives here as a result”, he said. “All has happened to ensure that when your great-nephew Dane and his 'friend' Constantine go to the United States next month, they will take Dane's brother Henry with them. Henry's grandson will be the second Dean Winchester, and hence the timeline shall be restored.”

I tried not to frown at that. He smiled reassuringly.

“But not before you and Dean have had some time in Heaven first”, he added. "I am sure the pair of you can find some way to pass forty years or so."

He glanced at the barn door behind me, and I turned and looked. Dean was coming through that door – a Dean as young as that fateful first day when Sherlock and John had met in Stamford's room at Oxford over six decades ago, a Dean whose soul shone as brightly as when I had – would have - rescued him from Hell, far into a future that we could now rewrite. A future in which I knew that I would always be his. 

Now, of course, he just looked gloriously confused.

“Sherlock”, he yawned as he scratched his head, “why are you up so early? And what are you doing out.....?”

My brother had, with exquisite timing, made himself scarce. I smiled at my love, and waited for him to realize the truth. He squinted at me, looked down at himself, then back at me again. A slow smile creased his gloriously handsome features, and he waggled his eyebrows at me in a way that was only going to lead to one thing.

“Well, whilst we're here....”

Even in death, he was incorrigible! Still, he had a point....

+~+~+

Some little time later we returned to our room to arrange our former bodies, and I smiled across at my love. He crossed to the panty draw, opened it, and waggled his eyebrows again. I wondered if Heaven knew just what was about to hit it!

Finally the two of us went out into the approaching dawn. Together, forever and always, Dean and Cas.

_[End narration by Castiel, Angel of Thursday]_


	2. Chapter 2

Dean stared in surprise.

“You all really do have pearly gates up here?” he asked. Castiel nodded.

“We never did”, he said, “but so many people came to expect them, my Father felt that he had to have them installed. Narrative causality.”

“What?”

“Reality conforming to the pressure of expectations”, the angel explained. “This is the angel entrance; we have a second for most people, and a third with a special trap-door for those we want to make suffer by showing them what they could have had if they had they been a better person, before they take the long drop to the nether regions. Hello, Pete.”

That at least was different, Dean thought wryly. The pedestal which he had half-expected St. Peter to be standing behind was instead a desk covered in papers (it even had one of those wire things with the hanging balls that Dean had always thought totally pointless), behind which sat an elderly white-haired fellow in a Wacky Races T-shirt with matching cap – Peter Perfect, of course! He stared at Dean curiously, then pulled a large book out of thin air and began thumbing through it.

“Peter!” Castiel said warningly. 

“You're no fun!” the saint sighed. “Okay. You boys are good to go in. Your carriage awaits.”

He pulled a lever at the side of his desk, and there was a mechanical sound from nearby – odd, Dean thought, as they were floating on clouds - until a familiar solid black figure rose majestically out of the clouds.

All that moisture was bound to make someone's eyes start watering.

The angel and the saint looked at him knowingly, as he prowled round the Impala. The gates had opened, and the two of them got into the car, as the gates creaked open before them. 

“Ready for eternity?” Dean grinned.

It briefly crossed the angel's mind that they would only have forty years before Dean would have to return to Earth and be born a second time. But he said nothing, and just reached across to take his lover by the hand. 

Alright, a little lower than the hand. St. Peter allowed himself a smirk at the less than dignified squeak from inside the behemoth. 

“Let's hit the road!” the angel smiled.

The Impala rolled forward smoothly, and moments later, was parked outside a very familiar cottage. The two kissed before getting out, then went inside. Dean and Cas, together in Heaven.

+~+~+

Somewhere else in Heaven, Mrs. God activated Her timer.

“Okay”, She muttered. “The books are now officially closed, boys and girls. Let's see how long they keep going at it!”

Her husband did not roll His eyes, although He wanted to. He just hoped fervently that all that sound-proofing would do its job.

+~+~+

One chapter left, and we're up to more recent times when everything is fine and wonderful and.....

Oh.


End file.
